My problem with these theories is that people like me just don't fit into them at all.
I've always been slow. Never did all that well in classes. When I was on a FIRST Robotics team I was phased out by the genius programmer that was already there and barely saw any code. I never really had a problem with for loops or if statements. But never really instantly got the more complex programming concepts, either. My father was a programmer so I was exposed to a lot of the things earlier, maybe that's why I missed the not getting for loops stage. I shouldn't be a programmer if many posts in this thread are to be believed. My father shouldn't be, either.
Worst of all, my programming understanding has went through several key developments in a very jagged fashion. For loops and if statements just didn't give enough to push me over the edge. And it wasn't just programming, but the general theme was that sometimes I would just not get some concept, or miss a simple concept, and after that, I would get stuck, and I could not get unstuck without some unusual event like getting the right help from the right source at the right time. One of my most important degrees of understanding did not develop until I took a certain class in the second-to-last semester of college.
After a while, it seems that enough things clicked all at once, and the problem went away. I don't get stuck anymore, I always know where to go. But that was supposed to happen earlier, so much earlier, but it just didn't.
While this was all happening I was definitely the kid who doesn't get it in the eyes of others. Maybe there's some teacher or mentor out there right now writing a blog post or a comment somewhere else about how they tried, they really tried, but I didn't get it.
And, yet, leaving for another industry would have easily been the worst decision of my life.
I've always been slow. Never did all that well in classes. When I was on a FIRST Robotics team I was phased out by the genius programmer that was already there and barely saw any code. I never really had a problem with for loops or if statements. But never really instantly got the more complex programming concepts, either. My father was a programmer so I was exposed to a lot of the things earlier, maybe that's why I missed the not getting for loops stage. I shouldn't be a programmer if many posts in this thread are to be believed. My father shouldn't be, either.
Worst of all, my programming understanding has went through several key developments in a very jagged fashion. For loops and if statements just didn't give enough to push me over the edge. And it wasn't just programming, but the general theme was that sometimes I would just not get some concept, or miss a simple concept, and after that, I would get stuck, and I could not get unstuck without some unusual event like getting the right help from the right source at the right time. One of my most important degrees of understanding did not develop until I took a certain class in the second-to-last semester of college.
After a while, it seems that enough things clicked all at once, and the problem went away. I don't get stuck anymore, I always know where to go. But that was supposed to happen earlier, so much earlier, but it just didn't.
While this was all happening I was definitely the kid who doesn't get it in the eyes of others. Maybe there's some teacher or mentor out there right now writing a blog post or a comment somewhere else about how they tried, they really tried, but I didn't get it.
And, yet, leaving for another industry would have easily been the worst decision of my life.